All he wanted was for it to sound the best it possibly could. The fact that he had the foresight to use The Internet as his house band before they became your favourite bandвЂ™s favourite band just proved that he was always about the artistry, it was always about the music for Mac. Instead he was backed up by The Internet. But it wasnвЂ™t him just rapping over a backing track, oh no not Mac. He played the album live for a small audience at BrixtonвЂ™s Plan B. I remember seeing him perform in London on the day his sophomore album, Watching Movies with the Sound Off, was released. He was a rapper, a singer, a producer (often under his alias Larry Fisherman), a writer, a multi-instrumentalist, a director, and so much more.

At first I found this odd because we live in a world where labelling everything is just what we do but I soon realised that the reason for it was because he wasnвЂ™t a white rapper, he was a uniquely gifted artist who could do it all. He was someone who was rarely painted with the white rapper stigma. While I was that kid making mixtapes that featured the likes of Public Enemy, Nas, Wu-Tang Clan, 2Pac, Biggie, LilвЂ™ Kim, Coolio, Warren G and more to share with my school friends, Mac was the kid in the lunchroom spitting raps over beats by those same artists. We understood we were guests in the house of Hip Hop. We had to prove that we truly belonged and that we werenвЂ™t another culture vulture infiltrating something built by the black and latino communities to exploit for our own personal gain. We educated our friends and family on the history and values of Hip Hop. We both knew and rapped the words to вЂњRappers DelightвЂќ at a very young age (his was filmed and used at the beginning of his вЂњBest Day EverвЂќ video). We both loved and respected Hip Hop culture. I felt like he and I lived parallel lives. It was uncanny how much he reminded me of myself. He had a pure heart and an even purer soul, which was something easily identifiable in the music he made and the way in which he carried himself. He was all about the culture and the betterment of it. Mac Miller was so unapologetically Hip Hop and I loved that about him. Then I discovered his K.I.D.S.В mixtape, which had just dropped, and that became the soundtrack to the rest of my 2010 and Mac Miller became the soundtrack to the rest of my life. I returned to my laptop, watched the video in full, fell in love with the track and then found myself falling into a Mac Miller YouTube rabbit hole that went on all day, all night and all week. From the moment I heard the vocal sample from NasвЂ™ вЂњThe World Is YoursвЂќ I knew YouTube had my back, for once.

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